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Wednesday, 4 November 2015

WIP Wednesday - more quilts in progress

I have stitched together my Interwoven Strips blocks and now have to work on the outer border.

Each Interwoven Strips block is constructed around the centre square so requires partial piecing. Making these blocks reminded me how much fun partial piecing is, and prompted me to get out my box of Oakshott plains and stripes.

The strips and squares you would have glimpsed in this post have been made up into 95 x 4 1/2" blocks. They went together in a trice. They are the same as the blocks I made for this little quilt which I have given to a dear friend. I always wanted to make another, bigger version, and am well on the way. In fact, the blocks are so easy and addictive to make, I want to cut up some more strips and make another 95 blocks!

If you are inclined to have a go, I wrote a tutorial, posted here. In case it is not clear from the tutorial, I would recommend that if you have any block which requires partial piecing you always line up your strips with the edge of the central square and stitch from there outwards. Otherwise you risk the centre square being not quite square and that really shows. Much easier to conceal any inaccuracies in the outer seams when you are joining two blocks together.

I have also been using up my odd strips of Oakshott cottons (one quilt inevitably leads to another) by pairing them with Liberty lawn scraps I have had for ages. The two types of fabric go well together, being of similar weight. I don't find Liberty lawn works all that well with some standard weight quilting cottons, but it is perfect with Oakshott, plus the two-tone slightly off colours are great with the quirky Liberty palette.

So I have made 56 sixteen-patches and now just need to get them stitched together for another simple but lovely quilt. Here's the layout so far (another dull rainy day so the colours aren't quite true, apologies).

I got a great bargain at my local quilt shop - 4 metres of soft pink shot cotton for the backing at only £5 per metre. You may be able to see from the frayed selvage at the corner that the gorgeous colour is made with blue and coral/orange warp ad weft threads - how clever is that? Real colour magic.

4 comments:

Really, really not scary, I promise - you know how with a Log Cabin block you have a short strip and then three longer strips to make the first round? Well with partial seaming you can use all four strips the same length. especially good for stripes. Have a look at the tutorial when you have a minute and give it a go! You will impress yourself.